Cambridgeshire’s assistant coroner Simon Milburn said at a pre-inquest review hearing on Thursday that the medical cause of death was congestive heart failure.

He recorded that further underlying factors were cardiac AL amyloidosis – a rare, serious condition caused by a build up of abnormal proteins in organs and tissues – and plasma cell neoplasm, diseases in which the body makes too many plasma cells.

Clifford’s daughter Louise Clifford was not present at the hearing, but listened in on a phone line, via a mobile phone placed on the coroner’s desk.

Speaking to the room on loudspeaker, she said: “I accept he died of natural causes, but there were matters that exacerbated his condition.